Responding to an editorial on the extent of sexual abuse of pupils by their peers, a reader calls for more nuance and compassion. Plus a letter from Donna Hill

As a paediatrician specialising in the care of children who have been sexually abused, I am well aware of sexual harm that occurs in school settings by peers (Editorial 5 October). This is just one aspect of the wider issue of children and young people who sexually harm other children and young people.

Of all the children my organisation cares for, 30% are harmed by other children – data we shared with the children’s commissioner in their report in 2023 on the impact of pornography on harmful sexual behaviour on children.

Our testers reflect on a year of discoveries, from family game nights to fewer chores

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It’s our birthday! So to celebrate turning two, we asked our contributors to reflect on their year of testing pretty much everything – from beauty products to video doorbells. It turns out they’ve had some unexpected wins along the way.

Some managed to tick an extra thing off their to-do list. “After six months of testing IPL devices, epilators and then IPL devices again, I had no need to book in for my usual pre-beach wax this summer,” says Lise Smith. Rachel Ogden says testing toasters has meant knowing her smoke alarm “works just fine”.

Life had come crashing to a halt when I lost my brother. But in the cinema I found comfort and a strange solidarity

In 2022, my younger brother drowned in an accident. His death reset life as I knew it. I had been offered my first proper job; I didn’t take it. I was planning to move out; I stayed at home. At this critical juncture, with my foot on the pedal, ready to enter adult life, everything exploded.

At home, there were now three of us. We orbited separate corners of the house, each needing a different thing for comfort: for my mum, exercise; for my dad, music; for me, escape.

After Susan Brison was raped and left for dead, her husband, Thomas, did his best to support her. They are still together, while many relationships collapse after a sexual assault. What did he get right – and wrong? And why did she want him to write about her ordeal?

On a hot, still, silent noon, at a junction of dirt roads in rural France, Thomas Trezise stood scanning the horizon, looking and listening for his wife. He tried to soothe a deep foreboding. Susan Brison had headed out for a morning walk two hours ago. How could she be gone so long?

This was 4 July 1990, the start of what was meant to be a busy summer. Trezise and Brison were both assistant professors in the US – he in French at Princeton and Brison in philosophy at Dartmouth – and had just arrived at the remote farmhouse of Trezise’s French colleague. Life seemed packed with promise. “I’d found someone with whom I really wanted to spend my life and I just felt very, very lucky,” says Trezise. “Susan and I had fallen quickly and deeply in love – it was magical – and at that point, we were also trying to conceive a child. We loved being in France. I kind of felt I’d found my way. It was a good place … until it happened.”